China Media Body Gets New Film Boss

A little-known deputy film censor has been promoted to oversee China’s rapidly growing movie industry, sources inside the State Administration of Radio Film and Television told The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday.

On June 25, Zhang Pimin was promoted to vice-director of SARFT, where he formerly was deputy director of the Film Bureau responsible for helping to cut out too much onscreen sex and violence and for erasing messages perceived as hurtful to China and its ruling Communist Party.

A little-known bureaucrat, the 56-year-old Zhang took up a recently vacated seat next to SARFT vice director Zhao Shi, long the highest-ranking Chinese official to engage the Hollywood studios in public on the issues of piracy and market access affecting the movie industry worldwide.

“The responsibility for China’s film industry is shifting from Zhao to Zhang,” said Liu Chun, deputy director for international cooperation at the Film Bureau at SARFT.

Zhang took the vice director seat vacated after the recent retirement of Lei Yuanliang, who was not involved in the oversight of the film industry, Liu said. “Zhao and Zhang will share some of the responsibilities previously managed by Lei,” who reached the typical retirement age of 60 in December.